From: Richard C. Staats (staats@MIT.EDU)
Date: Tue 23 Nov 1993 - 12:39:47 EET
Greetings!
I have always treated the DI's as varying in both capability and form from cult to cult. So, although one cult may allow a d10 roll for a runelord, it does not follow that another cult would in my campaign. Some specific examples of DI's might help.
It would be perfectly reasonable for an Orlanth initiate to make a DI to teleport his band out of some danger (or into it). Likewise, a Storm Bull initiate might be get a DI to grant him/her some particular immunity to a chaos creature for a limited period of time.
On the other hand, a Death Lord would almost certainly not get a DI to resurrect someone, just as a Chalana Arroy cultist would not get a DI to sever a character's spirit.
As to the question of how do you prevent 10% of a dying force from DI'ing itself back to life...there are a couple of ways. I would not allow most cults to have their members be DI'd back to life (*never* with Humakti). Also, most ancient battles did not end with the forces being obliterated; that is a recent "innovation". Most battles ended when one group fell into absolute disorder and was either captured, routed off the field of battle, or just surrendered. In the extraordinary circumstances one finds in Glorantha where heroes are fighting Chaos for the very survival of the world, there are most likely more fatalities as folks would probably fight to the death against some vile Chaos spawn (*phew* *phew*) rather than surrender and be eaten. In these cases, the gods and goddesses are no doubt kind and grant DI's to heroes to allow them to keep fighting, but in a typical battle between tribe "A" and tribe "B" out on the Prax, it is unlikely that there are many life saving DI's.
Hope you find this helpful!
In service,
Rich
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